Posted on 02/12/2005 7:40:07 PM PST by wagglebee
The votes have been cast – if not yet fully counted – and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy owes the brave people of Iraq a profound apology. Some 8 million Iraqis on Jan. 30 defied terrorists' threats of violence and death to cast their ballots for a more hopeful future than Mr. Kennedy was willing to grant them. In so doing, Iraqis, who hadn't voted in free elections in a half-century, gave the lie to the Massachusetts Democrat's nakedly partisan rant three days before the balloting that the war that made the voting possible was "a colossal failure, a continuing quagmire." In fact, although about three dozen people – minus the eight suicide bombers – died in election-related violence, the terrorists' vow to wreak maximum havoc nationwide to minimize the turnout and thereby render the vote illegitimate was what was the true "colossal failure."
Indeed, Iraqi voters gave the collective finger, a purple dye-stained finger, to the thugs and assassins – and to Mr. Kennedy, whose diatribe at Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies Jan. 27 gave demagoguery a bad name. For Mr. Kennedy to characterize the Iraq war as "Bush's Vietnam" in advance of the balloting served only to give propaganda aid and comfort to terror mastermind Abu Musab Zarqawi and his henchmen. But beyond that, it grossly misrepresents the Vietnam War – specifically, the U.S. conduct of the war and the lessons thereof.
North Vietnamese Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap admitted that the January 1968 Tet Offensive was a disastrous defeat for the Communists – not for the United States, as it was portrayed in the U.S. media – and that in its wake, Hanoi was on the verge of surrendering. More tellingly, Gen. Giap acknowledged that it was the U.S. domestic anti-war movement that kept the North going. In other words, the very people who claimed they only wanted an end to the killing were actually responsible for prolonging the war for several years and by tens of thousands of deaths.
Zarqawi is no doubt aware of, and encouraged by, that sordid chapter of our history, and with the likes of Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya transmitting his remarks across the Middle East, Mr. Kennedy has become the Jane Fonda (the Lt. John Kerry?) of the Iraq war. It could be argued that not only are his remarks not likely to bring about an end to the bloodletting in Iraq, but rather, considerably prolong it by giving the terrorists hope that the United States will, in the late Sen. George Aiken's infamous Vietnam-era formulation, "declare victory and get out."
Leaving aside that it was President John F. Kennedy who got the United States into the Vietnam War in the first place, Sen. Kennedy's screed is the antithesis of his late brother's famous credo from his Jan. 20, 1961, inaugural address: "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."
If anything, Sen. Kennedy's shameful stance more closely mirrors that of his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, who as FDR's ambassador to Great Britain during World War II was the chief administration proponent of appeasement of Hitler and the Nazis. While the 1,400 U.S. troops whose lives have been lost in the nearly two years since Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched is sad and lamentable, one can only be grateful that Ted Kennedy was not in the Senate during World War II, when during the Battle of the Bulge alone, 19,000 U.S. troops died in six weeks' time. If he had been, much of Europe might well be speaking German today.
But perhaps Mr. Kennedy's most irresponsible and demonstrably false pre-election remark was his drawing of a moral equivalence between our troops and the terrorists. "Our military and the insurgents are fighting for the same thing: the hearts and minds of the people," he said, "and that is a battle we are not winning."
Apart from the fact that the suicide bombers – seven of whom on election day were Saudis, while only one was an Iraqi – are more interested in losing spleens and intestines than in winning hearts and minds, the Iraqi voters showed whose side they were on – with their index fingers.
Hey Brother!
in the '68 Tet offensive, the zips lost, Big Time.
In the '72 offensive, they lost again.
Our losses can be blamed on Kerry's fifth column.
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Aloha, Bro yourself ..Tonk.
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Read Bernard Fall's books. Annam, Cochinchina and Viet Nam are synonymous; the conflict there spans a millennium.
We have to keep an eye on the "history" of the Viet Nam war.
We and other vets who were there know the true history.
Not the common misconceptions.
.
Also, try this...
HAL G. MOORE: The Lessons and Lessons of an American Warrior
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/page_left_column.php?content=show_curr_issue_0904a
http://war-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14752&page=1
.
I believe the first American casualties in Nam were CIA contract pilot "Earthquake McGoon" and his copilot who died air dropping supplies into Dien Bien Phu on May 6th, 1954, the day before it fell.
There was a show on one of the documentary channels about him recently, I can't recall which channel.
Um, but who set forth the doctrine of "containment"? Harry Something Truman.
Any way, when the French did the French thing, that is, running away, that inflamed the mess in Algeria.
So the French ran away from that fight too, which begat the islamofascist movement.
If suicide bombers started blowing themselves up and killing people in downtown Boston, would Kennedy say that they were trying to win the hearts and minds of the people of Massachusetts?
Iraqis suffered for years under Saddam Hussein. Which Iraqis, Senator Kennedy, had their hearts and minds won over by seeing their friends and relatives blown up by insurgents? I'll tell you which ones. The ones who went out and voted. The insurgents random, wanton bloodshed drove them to the polls, you idiot.
ha ha ha. That cracks me up every time! *-hole
hehhhehehe
ER-AH! "I will increase your taxes, er ah."
BLACK SUBMARINE
Kinnard concocted the incomparably funny "nuts" response for MacAuliffe (to reiterate to the Germans at Bastogne).
That one got by me somehow. I did not know that; you learn something new every day.
Thanks for the info!
Write a book. That is important. Don't let Marxists like Kerry twist the Truth.
Dr. Bill Peters wrote a great book on 'nam. Lots of good guys have. Need to make sure the Truth is firmly established in history so that Marxists do not eradicate it. They will, if given the chance.. they will.
Just curious, did the swimmer know about Kinnard when he was there? After Ia Drang/LZ XRay did anyone hear from Kennedy, did he do anything for ya'll?
Terms: junket, trotting, trip, survey.
All history by the Politics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
subject to change.
This may be where Ted is getting his material:
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article7468.htm
See "Terrorist Propaganda". This video is directed to the Europeans and condemns the US and Britain. I stumbled accross it while trolling through antiwar.com
That's got to be some leftwing Eurocoward with a bag over his head, there's no way in hell that's an Arab talking in that video. Sounds a bit like an Irishman.
"Um, but who set forth the doctrine of "containment"? Harry Something Truman."
I believe you are correct, however Eisenhower sent the 1st US troops to Viet Nam.
Just doing my part;)
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